Israeli airstrikes killed dozens of people including two families in both Gaza and Lebanon, while Hezbollah fired a volley of 55 rockets into northern Israel in response.
World leaders urged restraint and tried to frame the ceasefire negotiations as heading in a positive direction.
But in an interview with Sky News, the leader of Hamas in Lebanon told us no progress had been made so far at the talks and the two sides appear to be just as far apart as ever.
Hamas is not at the negotiations but messages and updates have been passed on to them on the sidelines.
I take it you’d support the dismantling of all ethnostates then?
Of course. All theocracies too, in case you were planning a “but Arab States” gotcha.
Gaza is a theocracy.
And I want the theocratic Hamas government replaced with a democratic and secular one.
Me too. Israel, too. Everywhere really.
Baby steps though. Look how long it took humans to come up with democratic governance. It could be snuffed out in much less time, and we cannot force people to change their culture if they don’t want it to change.
Yes. Nationalism is unnatural. Middle Eastern cities for the longest of times hosted people from diverse backgrounds. Even the tiny little Gaza has churches from different Christian sects that stood for centuries until Israel bombed them.
Every Arab country has some religious or ethnic or linguistic minority. Even Saudi Arabia has indigenous people who don’t speak Arabic, Faifi is one indigenous Semitic language spoken. And it also has religious minorities that aren’t Sunni Muslims. Saudi Arabia is not an ethnostate, all the diverse people are equally Saudi but it does privilege Najdis and Najdi culture.
Yes. No one deserves an ethnostate. Especially a religiously based one.